Training dog not to be a nuisance at mealtimes

[Flylikeabirdinthesky]

18 m.o dog has developed a habit of being a nuisance when the whole family is sitting down to dinner.

He will wander from person to person, nosing at the table and not settling. He doesn't take food from plates and nobody feeds him from the table but he does it constantly. He will also go and pull at DS1's socks. We have a sort of bench seat on one side of the table and he will try to get up onto it.

He doesn't do it if just one or two people are sitting down, e.g. at breakfast or lunch; it's only when the whole family is sitting so I think it's to do with attention.

I've tried putting him in a separate room but he barks and barks.

I've tried feeding him at the same time as we're eating (we eat in the kitchen) but he's a world class fussy drawers at the best of times and would rather ignore his own food to be with us.

This is a fairly new habit - he used to just flop down next to the table while we ate.

How do I train him out of it? He's so well behaved in literally every other situation and he's a very intelligent breed so I think it can be fixed!

Hm ignore ignore ignore? Tell him to 'go over there' and wherever he likes to settle give him a chew. And then keep ignoring. He'll get bored eventually

This is what we do and it works!

A firm ‘no’ then ‘go to bed’ works in our house. She often doesn’t even bother tbh.

Something changed if he has only started to do this.

Can you get him to lie down by your seat at the start of the meal and nobody looks at him or distracts him, only you are in charge of correction recall to position and everybody else makes no response if he gets up?

What does he do during other mealtimes when the whole family isn't sitting down?

Can you train him to go and settle in his bed while you all eat?

We have trained our dog to lie in his bed when we eat. It took persistence but he soon learnt if he stayed in his bed he got a treat.

Another one who has just about managed to train the dog to go on her bed whilst we eat.
We had to start by rewarding her with food whilst we ate (and she was in her bed) and gradually increase the time between treats. Any idea why his behaviour has changed? Did someone drop some food recently whilst at the table? You probably need to go back to basics with the training with this.

In my experience “don’t do that” isn’t how dogs think - it’s too vague as you’re basically saying “do what you want except that one thing you’re enjoying”. You need to train them to “do this specific thing instead”.

Our dog is food obsessed (beagle) but will sit nicely on his bed when we’re at the table. I trained him to get on his bed on command at other times, for a reward or the start of a game. For example when we play “find it” with treats, he always sits on his bed while we hide the goodies. So in his mind it’s a positive thing to be told “on your bed”. Then you can use it at mealtimes as a consistent thing. If he’s good he might get a scrap or two when the meal is over. If he makes a dash for the table while we’re eating he’s immediately shut out of the room. He got the message pretty quickly.

Teach a 'go in your bed'. Have a bowl of treats with you at the table and when he goes in his bed, it will have to be rapid fire treating to start with. If he gets up, direct back to the bed. It will take a while but this is what worked for my dog. Now he sees us sitting at the table as the cue to go in his bed and he doesn't move until we get up.

Exactly what the poster above said. One of my dogs always used to pester us. So I would have dog treats next to me and say "on your bed" if he got into bed a treat would be chucked to him with no eye contact.

He learnt very quickly.

Now when he sees us sitting down for a meal he goes straight to his bed, watches me like a hawk and at most meal times a treat will fly through the air to him. Just one treat. He loves the game and clearly looks forward to mealtimes. It's great too as teaches him to maintain eye contact on me.

Hope it helps